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C
HAPTER

13

I
figured Sootle, the chimney swifts' leader, would be hiding out in the Twilight somewhere, but the four swifts hustled me through the dark and deserted streets and down to the bank of the river, where they shoved me into a rowboat. Two of them, the woman and the burly man, Drury, got in; the other two stayed behind on the shore. So did Pip. The cat-dragon would find me on the other side of the river. Hopefully Pip would come soon, just in case I needed to do the dazzler spell or the needle-prickler to get away from the swifts.

Drury rowed the boat across the river, past the dark and sleeping magisters' islands. Heartsease was dark, too, except for one light shining from a window on the second floor.
Hello, Nevery
, I thought as the boat slipped silently past the island. He was up late, working in the study, reading a book or writing in his grimoire. If he could see me now he'd be furious, most likely, and so would Benet. So would Embre and Rowan and Kerrn, for that matter. They didn't need to worry. Sure as sure I could look after myself.

On the other side of the river, Drury and the woman, whose name was Floss, led me down the Sunrise streets and 'round the back of a plain-fronted house and took me inside. They put me in a room and told me to wait, which I did for a long time. I listened to the tromping sound of feet in a room upstairs, and then I lay on the hard floor and fell asleep. Finally they came back and brought me down a long hallway and up some stairs and into a dim-dark room.

Three chimney swifts were sitting around a plain table with a lit candle on it. I looked carefully at them, just in case any of them were the men who'd tried to kidnap me from the Heartsease courtyard, but I'd never seen any of them before.

In the room, heavy curtains hung over the windows, and the rest of the room was empty, not even any pictures on the walls or carpets on the floor. A fireplace gaped like an empty mouth, no fire burning there. The swifts ignored us as we came in.

One of them pointed up at the ceiling. “He coming down again, Sootle?” he asked the man sitting at the end of the table.

Sootle was tall and very thin and he had a pointy nose and long, black, stringy hair with a bald patch on the top of his head; and, like the others, he was smudged with soot. “No, we're done. The men he brought in will take care of the rest of it,” he said. “Take yourselves off. Looks like I've got some other business here.”

The other chimney swifts went out of the room, leaving me facing Sootle, with Drury and Floss standing behind me, blocking the door.

“Well?” Sootle asked. He looked me up and down with sharp, black eyes. “You've brought me a gutterboy, have you?”

“Says he knows about stolen wizard stones,” Floss said.

Sootle's sharp eyes narrowed. “What d'you know exactly, gutterboy?”

I shrugged.

The sooty hand flashed out and he cuffed me across the face. “I asked you a question, gutterboy. Answer it.”

Shaking off the blow, I nodded. “I figured out about the stones. And I want to come work for you.”

“Do you, now? We'll see about that. What's your name?” Sootle asked.

“Pip,” I said. It was the first name I could think of that wasn't my own.

“You afraid to go up a chimney, Pip?” asked Sootle.

“No,” I said. I didn't think I was. “I'm a lockpick, too,” I added quickly.

“Are you, then?” Sootle drummed his long fingers on the tabletop. “What d'you think, Floss? Drury?”

Floss stepped back to look me over. “He's too tall,” she said.

Sootle nodded. “He's skinny, though. He might do. I might take him on myself. I could use an intrepid lockpicker charboy like this, especially after last night.” He got to his feet, then went to the hearth, where he squatted down, leaned into the fireplace, and looked up. “Flue's open.” He stood. “Up you go, young Pip. Tell us about the view from the top.”

Up the chimney, he meant. All right. I went over to the fireplace and ducked inside. The brick walls of the chimney closed around me, burned black and a little wider than my shoulders. I looked up. Spiderwebs and darkness, and at the very top—way, way above—a square of dark gray, the night sky with morning coming soon.

How was I supposed to climb all the way up there?

“Get on with it, Pip,” came Sootle's hollow voice from outside. “Or I'll light a fire under you.”

I slid my hands along the walls. Flat bricks, gritty with soot, and then, just over my head, a brick sticking out a little farther than the others. A ledge. For climbing up! I looked and found some other ledges lower down. Kicking off my shoes and my one sock and leaving them at the bottom, I started climbing. My toes clung to the sticking-out bricks and my fingers gripped hard, pulling me up. The chimney closed in around me like a dark square tunnel, growing narrower as I went higher. Soot crumbled from the bricks and sifted down, and rubbed off as my shoulders and knees brushed the walls. I heard a
rush-rush-rush
of wind blowing over the top of the chimney and felt the air pull at me, just as it pulled the smoke up from the hearth.

I kept climbing, blinking to keep the soot out of my eyes, coughing when I breathed it in. At last, panting with the effort, I got to the top, where I pulled myself up, hooked my arms over the edge of the chimney, and looked around, catching my breath. Off to the east the sky was just turning the pink and gray of morning. The dark slate rooftops of the Sunrise lay all around me, chimneys sticking out of them like snaggled teeth, most of them leaking smudges of smoke. Some of them had birds' nests built on them.

Wind whistled over the rooftops, ruffling my hair. I could see so far! The Dawn Palace loomed over the Sunrise from its hilltop, glimmering pink in the morning light.

I waved at the palace, at the ducal magister's stuffy rooms and his closet full of fancy clothes and his cold cabbage soup, and his bag full of money. “Hello, Ro!” I shouted. With Rowan so busy, she was probably already hunched over her desk with Miss Dimity hovering over her like a vulture. I knew Rowan—she'd rather be taking a sword-fighting lesson than getting ready to go to another boring meeting. For a moment I felt sorry for her, stuck in her duchess box.

Below the palace, the city was starting to stir. I turned and looked in the other direction, toward the shadowy dark of the Twilight. In the dusty-dim light the river gleamed like slowsilver, flowing around the wizards' islands, under the Night Bridge, and away. I took a deep breath and let it out. I felt like I could leap from the chimney and fly over the city like a black bird, free and light.

From the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of something moving, and jerked my head around to look. A cat, lurking.

“Hello, Pip,” I said, grinning. Pip bounded across the rooftiles, crawled up the outside of the chimney, and crouched next to me.

From below I heard a hollow shout. Oh, right. The swifts were down there waiting for me, and Sootle, who thought I might be frightened of climbing up a chimney.

Still grinning, I started down, skiffing from one brick-edge to the next, to the bottom, where I landed in a cloud of soot. I ducked out of the fireplace and stood.

“Well?” Sootle asked. He and Floss and Drury had been waiting, and not very patiently, by the looks of it.

I swiped at the soot on my face. “The sun's rising,” I said. “And I could see all the way to the Twilight from up there.”

From the chimney came a scrabbling noise, and more soot sifted down. The swifts stared as Pip, covered with soot so it was completely black, dropped down into the fireplace and crawled out into the room. Its eyes gleamed red and it glared around, its tail twitching. Seeing me, it padded over, then climbed up to my shoulder.

“What is
that
?” Sootle asked, backing away a step when Pip turned its head to look at him.

“It's a cat,” I said.

They stared.

Krrrr
, Pip said.

“It's purring, see?” I said. Pip opened its mouth in a yawn, showing a row of needle-sharp teeth. “It likes chimneys,” I said. And so did I.

Floss glanced at Sootle. “He'll do, then?” she asked.

“He'll do,” Sootle said. He looked me over again with his sharp black eyes. “And I've got just the job for him.”

C
HAPTER

14

B
efore Sootle told me what just-the-job he had for me, he took me down to the house's cellar to meet the other chimney swift kids, seven of them, one for each swift. They were called charboys and chargirls, and they looked like they'd been charred; they were dressed in black and covered with soot from their hair to their bare feet. They were just waking up, blinking in the light of the lantern that Sootle carried down the cellar steps. The cellar didn't look too bad. It was damp, but every kid had a woolen blanket.

“You'll sleep here, Pip,” Sootle said to me. Then we headed back up the stairs, the charkids following, to the kitchen at the back of the house, where he left me. Another chimney swift was stirring a pot of porridge. Eggs were frying in a pan on the stove. As the kids came in, the swift gave each one a bowl of porridge with an egg on top. He gave one to me, too. We sat down on the floor and ate it with our fingers and wiped our faces on our sleeves. Pip came and sat next to me and I gave it some of my egg to eat.

The charboys and girls didn't say anything, they just watched me and Pip with their pale eyes in their sooty faces, slurping up their egg-and-porridge. They were like the gutterkids and mudlarks. All they thought about was chimneys and what they were going to have for dinner. They didn't have anybody to look after them, I realized. Not like I did. These kids were so busy looking after themselves that they didn't have time for anything else.

I'd been just like that before I'd picked Nevery's pocket and become a wizard.

“D'you know how to read, any of you?” I asked.

One of them shook her head, the others just stared.

When we were finished, Sootle came back and brought me to the door. Taking out a purse string, he pulled off a couple of copper lock coins, which he handed to me. “Go to a swagshop, Pip, and get yourself some proper charboy clothes. Black.” He narrowed his dark eyes. Was he smiling? “So the soot won't show.” He shoved me out the door. “Be back by midday.”

Right. I skiffed off. I'd get the charboy clothes, but I had some other things to do first.

 

Nevery was
not
happy to see me. It was still early morning when I snuck into Heartsease, and he hadn't had his tea yet.

Leaving Pip-cat outside to hunt pigeons, I went into the study. From his chair, Nevery glared at me. “When was the last time you had a wash?”

I was filthy, true. I was very glad to see him, too. “I went up a chimney, Nevery.”

“Hmph,” he said. “I suppose you enjoyed that, my lad.”

I grinned at him. Sure as sure, it'd been better than any Dawn Palace meeting.

Nevery opened his mouth to scold me some more when Benet came in, carrying a tray with tea things on it. Seeing me, he stopped and set the tray down on the table with a thump. “You'll need another cup,” he growled.

I remembered the errand Sootle had sent me on. “Benet, can I have my black sweater back?”

Benet grunted and went out.

Nevery poured me a cup of tea and I fetched it and went to sit on the hearth. Benet brought another teacup and saucer and my black sweater, then went out, making sure I got more glare before he left.

I took off the tattered vest and pulled the sweater on over my head. There, now I felt more like myself.

The tea was good and hot. I blew on it to cool it and took a sip. Lady-the-cat came in and, purring, climbed onto my lap. I sighed, happy to be home.

I knew, though, that this wouldn't actually
be
my home again until I figured out what I was, me the gutterboy-wizard-apprentice-ducal-magister-magical-thief.

“Well?” Nevery asked impatiently, pouring out his own tea and adding honey. “What have you been up to, Connwaer?”

Right. “I found out who's been stealing the locus stones.” While petting Lady, I told him about the chimney swifts and how they could go down a chimney, steal a stone, and climb back out again, easy.

“Chimney
swifts
?” Nevery asked, when I finished.

I nodded.

“Swifts,” he muttered. He got to his feet and went to the bookshelf, then pulled out a book and glanced through the pages. “Ah.” He set the book on the table. “Come here and look at this.”

I set Lady aside and went to the table. It was a book about birds. Nevery's finger tapped the page, showing me where to look. The page said,
Chimney Swift, known to nest in chimneys and on rooftops.

Then a picture of a black bird with sleek wings and a forked tail. I stared at it and my stomach turned cold. “A swift is a kind of black bird?”

Nevery sat in his chair again. “You didn't know?”

No, I didn't.

“Black birds, Conn,” he said. “The chimney swifts could have something to do with Crowe.”

Could they? My name, Connwaer, meant a kind of black bird, and so did Embre's—he was really Embre-wing, a black bird with a bright orange spot on its wings. My mother's name had been Black Maggie, or Magpie. We had those names because we were part of the same family. So was Crowe.

“Boy, I've had this feeling”—Nevery shook his head—“a feeling that some kind of plot is taking shape around us. I think it's possible that Crowe has returned out of exile.”

Just the thought of that made fright shiver through me. Then I considered it. “No, Nevery,” I said. “It's not him. Embre and I thought maybe Crowe sent those men who beat the fluff out of me, so I did the anstriker spell to look for him. Crowe's not in Wellmet.”

“The anstriker spell, hmm? You're sure? The spell worked, even with the magics in such disorder?”

I nodded. “Those two fluff-beaters who came after me weren't swifts, either. It's all right, Nevery.”

“It is not
all right
, boy.” Nevery frowned at me. “I don't like this sneaking around.”

Oh, he was going to like this even less. “That's not exactly what I'm doing,” I admitted. “I've joined the chimney swifts. Their leader has taken me on as his charboy.”

“Curse it!” Nevery slammed his fist on the table. His teacup jumped in its saucer and then tipped over, spilling tea across the tabletop. “Curse it,” he muttered again, and blotted up spilled tea with his sleeve. “This is too dangerous. You've identified the thieves; now it's time to send in the palace guard to deal with them.”

That was a terrible idea. “But Nevery, I haven't found out anything yet. I don't know how they're stealing locus stones without the stones killing them, and I don't know why they're stealing the stones in the first place.” Captain Kerrn's guards wouldn't find that out, either. They'd just go stomping around in their boots making a lot of noise, and most likely the swifts would get away and the stolen locus stones would be lost. “I need to be a charboy for a little longer, just until I find out what the swifts are up to.”

Nevery frowned at me from under his bushy eyebrows. After a long moment he righted his cup, poured himself more tea, and stirred in some honey.
Tink-tink-tink
went the spoon on the side of the cup. “Another locus stone went missing last night, boy,” he said. “Sandera's—again. The thefts are a serious problem, some sort of attack on the magisters of the city.” He set down the spoon. “Conn, I do see the necessity in pursuing this. But you must be more careful.”

“Nevery, I am—”

“No.” Nevery pointed at me. “You're not.” He sighed and rubbed his hand across his face. All of a sudden he looked weary and gray. What was making him look so old? “And the two-magic problem is getting worse,” he added.

I nodded. “You can feel it, too?”

He snorted. “Every wizard in the city can feel it, Connwaer. The thieves have stolen these locus stones at the time when the city most needs its wizards. The magisters have prohibited the use of magic by all the wizards in the city—with the magics this unsettled, spells may effect in more and more dangerous ways.” He lowered his eyebrows. “You know how bad things could get, my lad.”

I did. If the magics stayed like this for much longer, it'd mean worse than just a few spells gone wrong.

“The magisters blame you for all of this, of course,” Nevery said.

I knew that. “Don't worry, Nevery,” I said, getting to my feet. “I'll go out now and talk to the magics and see if I can help them.” It's what I'd been meaning to do, until the chimney swifts had distracted me. It had to be me because none of the other wizards—except Nevery—truly understood that the magics were actual beings, not just power that was there to be used, and none of them had quite realized that their magical spells were actually the magics' language—that by saying a spell we were talking to the magics.

“Will you, indeed?” he asked, leaning back in his chair. “Then I will go with you.”

I knew better than to argue. Once Nevery made up his mind to do something, he'd do it.

We could do it right here, at Heartsease island. Now that I thought about it, Heartsease was in between the Sunrise and the Twilight—the best place for dealing with the magics, really.

Outside, the cobbled courtyard was clotted with white, smoky fog mixed with the yellowish mist that crept up from the river and hung low to the ground. Nevery swept-stepped across the courtyard, and the fog swirled out of his way and closed in again behind us.

I reached out and tugged on Nevery's sleeve. “Over here,” I said, and pointed past the tall, bare-branched tree. We came to the edge of the courtyard, climbed over a low tumble of rocks, and stood on the muddy bank of the river. The water was smooth under the fog, and lapping quietly against the shore; farther out it flowed swiftly and silently past. In the dim light I caught glimpses of the Twilight shore; I could see cranes poking out above the fog and the dark hulls of a couple of ships at anchor.

Nevery stepped up beside me, looking out at the foggy river. “Explain how we're going to do this
talking
to the magics, boy,” he said, “and tell me, too, what you're planning to talk to them about.”

I hadn't had time to think it through. “Well, Nevery,” I said slowly, figuring it out as I talked. “When Arhionvar came here to Wellmet, we could have banished it, but instead we let it stay.”

“
We
, is it?” Nevery said, but he was pulling at the end of his beard, so I knew he wasn't really angry.

“Well, I did,” I admitted. “What I did was, I used slowsilver to tie both magics to the city. The problem is that the Arhionvar magic is sort of young and strong and way more powerful than our old, tired Wellmet magic.”

He nodded; he knew that as well as I did.

“I think the magical beings are bound together by the magic that I did, and they're fighting each other at the same time to be the magic of the city. So when a wizard here does a spell, they both try to effect it, and the spell turns out all wrong, or it turns out twice as strong as the wizard expected it to be.”

“Hmm. So how do you plan to fix that problem?”

I nodded. “I wonder if they'd both be happier”—I stopped because I wasn't sure the magics even
felt
happiness the way we did—“if they'd feel more settled, I mean, if they each took a different part of the city for themselves. Arhionvar could have the Sunrise and the old Wellmet magic could have the Twilight.”

Nevery glanced sideways at me and pulled his locus magicalicus out of his cloak pocket. “Interesting, and it may work. Show me what to do.”

Nevery didn't know the spellwords to do this. But his locus magicalicus, joined with mine, would make my voice clearer to the magic. “Pip,” I called.

Pip-cat bounded over from where it'd been poking its whiskers into a pile of riverweed and trash and climbed up to perch on my shoulder. I rested my hand on its paw.

Speaking slowly, I started the spell, saying hello to the magics and reminding them who I was and telling them that Nevery was here with me. In response, the magics gathered around us, making everything turn white-bright with flames and sparks. I smelled the dry, smoky smell of pyrotechnics, and my skin prickled all over. Nevery's locus magicalicus gave a sudden bright flash.

“The magics know you,” I gasped.

Nevery gave a brisk nod and kept a tight grip on his locus stone.

I spoke a few more spellwords and the magics grew brighter, crackling through my bones and sparking off my skin. Then my ears popped and everything went silent, as if we were floating in a bubble. I blinked. We were still standing near the river, tall, gray-robed Nevery and small, ragged Connwaer with a bright spark of a cat-dragon on his shoulder, but overlaying my vision was the magics' view. Everything looked tiny, far away, the city a dark, flowing plain, Nevery, Pip, and me blazing like bright stars at the edge of Heartsease island, the other wizards of the city duller sparks. The slowsilver that flowed beneath the river kept the magics attached to this place with a bone-deep pull.